Pic of the Day > Mantis Alien by plasticfetish
Interview > Bluefin Tamashii Nations USA
As many of you know, I’m pretty excited about the S.H.MonsterArts line. That line is being brought to the U.S. by Bluefin Distribution, who have a fairly active presence on Facebook. Bluefin’s Xavier Lim was kind enough to answer a few questions about the company and the brands it distributes.
1.) Many Western collectors are unfamiliar with Bluefin Tamashii Nations USA. Can you briefly describe the company and its connection to Bandai? (Side question: what’s the “Bluefin” about?)
Bluefin Distribution is an official U.S. distributor for 2 branches of Bandai Japan: Bandai Collectors, known as Tamashii Nations, and Bandai Hobby, the division that produces Gundam-related model kits. The “Bluefin” is a reference to the bluefin tuna. (more…)
Pic of the Day > Warsaw Pact by C. Morgenweck
Interview > James Chillcott of ShelfLifex.com
When you run a toy-oriented website (or any website, really) with a respectable amount of traffic, you eventually start to receive unsolicited emails. Most of the time they’re either unrelated to the topic of the website, press releases, or just boring. Once in a while, though, I receive an email that intrigues me and I think merits further investigation.
A few months back I got an email from the folks at ShelfLife (www.shelflifex.com), a new website whose three stated goals are:
- To create a free encyclopedia of every collectible ever made
- To provide the best collection management tools, community features and collectibles news aggregation yet seen
- To make Ebay useless to collectors by launching a next generation marketplace that blows that old tech away
Lofty goals, of course, and time will tell successful they are at reaching them. But I visited the site out of curiosity and found something that had been lacking in my previous test-drives of similar sites: an easy-to-use, intuitive interface.
I wrote back to ShelfLife CEO James Chillcott to find out more about the project. (more…)
Pic of the Day > Draego-Man_01 by Kwehttamm
BBTS has Takara Masterpiece, New Hasbro Marvel, SW, Joe, TF, Dark Knight, MIB III & More
We’ve just dropped pricing on three new Masterpiece offerings from Takara – MP-12 Sideswipe ($83.99), MP-12 Red Alert ($83.99), MP-13 Soundwave ($139.99) and have posted this on our site
Attention Transformers Customers – BBTS ‘Thank You’ Preorder Price Cut
We appreciate your patronage and want to thank all our valued Transformers customers by offering a special preorder discount on these items! Transformers and Transformer customers have been a key part of BBTS since inception in 1999! If it’s been a while since you’ve purchased from BBTS, we want you back! If you’ve never shopped with us before, give us a try – we won’t let you down! Our Pile of Loot, Secure Shopping, No-Strings-Attached Preorders, Gigantic Selection, Vintage Department, Collector Grade, Protective Packaging, and Superior Service make BBTS the #1 destination for collectors.
Dark Knight Rises product is now officially ready for live sales online – check out our menu here – 65 items up for order now, more will be added as vendors release information.
Men In Black III – Standard Issue Sidearm Replica
McFarlane Dark Knight Sports Picks – Hines Ward – Gotham Rogues
Dark Knight Rises Film Cells – 12 cool items
Hasbro has just released an impressive list of new products:
Star Wars Vintage Figures – Wave 04 – This wave features 6 new figures each with a normal version of the packaging as well as a new promotional blue card version. Cases, Sets, and Singles are available here:
Marvel Universe 2012 – Wave 01 – This wave contains Spider-Man Unlimited, Kraven, New Incredible Hulk, Beast, and Beta Ray Bill – available by the case or set
Transformers Prime Deluxe – Waves 05 and 06 – Wave 05 features Ironhide and Rumble, Wave 06 features a nice mix of desirable new and older figures – all in some sort of new or promotional style packaging
GI Joe Retaliation – Wave 03 Figures – 5 new figures plus a set of wave 2 figures in this case
Pic of the Day > The Hulk by DEADPOOLISTHEMAN316
Pic of the Day > skulk by Johnson Cameraface
Evil Sectaur of the Dark Domain
Hangin’ with Mr. Parr & Poe’s On Vacation
This past weekend I hung out with my good friend Rustin Parr of OAFE, as well as Power Pals PrfktTear & the rarely-seen Sped. Rustin enjoyed his visit and bought something at nearly every place we went to, from a Lego store to Comicazi. I’m sure he’ll write them all up in a Rustin’s Spoils over at OAFE in the near future, so keep an eye out for that.
The most memorable stop was at a Five Below, where Rustin spent fifteen minutes feeling up blind-bagged Playmobil packages to figure out what was inside them.
The store’s security guard kept pacing nearby, as if this represented the most interesting thing that had happened at the store this month. The good news is Rustin was able to find what he was looking for with only a modicum of his dignity impaired.
In other news, I’m on vacation for a week starting tomorrow. I’m going to try to set up some posts to go up while I’m gone, and I may write a post if something important comes up while I’m away, but PGPoA will be on hiatus until a week from Thursday.